ALBA BOUSTANJI
WHEN SHE IS ABSENT
Performed by Marxus Absi and Alba Boustanji
In collaboration with Marxus Absi and Emil Filippo
Costume and puppet by Alba Boustanji
Advised by Katie Duck
Photography by Majd Unfolds
Duration 60 minutes
22 June 2023
Pvssy Akelarre at Kanaal 40, Amsterdam (NL)
This is a work developed in collaboration with Marxus Absi and Emil Filippo, with compositional and performance advice from Katie Duck.
The main role is given to a puppet made out of branches, resembling a child’s skeleton. After a violent birth, she is brought in disguised in a costume resembling some kind of insect. Once revealed, one of the performers wears the costume and dances the dance of that creature.
The performers and the piece itself undergo a transformation, similar to the cocooning and popping of a butterfly. Only here do the performers become human. They perform it from a ‘human-animal’ perspective, both in movement and text, ranging from primal instincts and reflexes to the intellectually manipulative. The point of focus is the relationship between humans and Earth and how this reflects the relationship between mother and child. This child, in revolt against its mother, destroys its own future by destroying its mother.
Playing with immersion and disruption, various scenes aim to incite different states of attention in the public; disorientation, tension, a dream-like state, ridicule, and the mundane. Through harsh cuts in sound and silence, lights, characters, performative nature, intensity, text, movement, and the direct addressing of the public, the performers shift the energy of the space. The aim is to question the illusory separation between humankind and nature, where in fact, the mother and the child are one.